Work as Struggle, Peace as Victory
by NullRitter
Summary: After being freed from a horrific cycle, Isaac seeks out fellow travelers who share the curse he barely escaped. Once again treading into that wretched realm, he will stop at nothing to rescue them and their humanity from the brink of destruction.


How many times had he been here?

Viewed life from this juncture?

Experienced the uncanny hilarity which continued to inspire spastic fits of laughter from within him?

Isaac didn't know.

The freezing sensation which calcified throughout his bloodstream was at odds with the migraine-inducing heat which radiated from the housefires near and far, causing streaming beads of sweat to linger upon his face and bare forearms.

Isaac was somewhat irked by how he had needed to discard his jacket earlier, but he reasoned that it was easier than trying to undo the torn fabric which had become tangled on a pony's exposed and shattered rib cage. Not allowing himself to be disheartened by a small inconvenience, he refocused onto the world around him, aimed his submachine gun in the general direction of the nearest pony, and squeezed the stiff trigger, creating a sound resembling that of a wet cloth being ripped as the equine's neck and skull were simultaneously perforated by lead, made bereft of body fluids and bone fragments, and thrown around in unnatural spasms as the bullets made impact.

Isaac paused briefly to reload and repeated the process on another individual in a businesslike fashion, any complaint of getting the ponies' filthy blood on him held back by his appreciation for the hearing protection he possessed. After all, he might reconsider his decision to quit playing the violin, and what good would a half-deaf musician be? He may have been half-German, but he was certainly no Beethoven.

"In fact, I like to see myself as more of an Ernst Jünger..."

Isaac entertained himself with his pointless musings as he brought his boot down on the head of an adolescent stallion for the seventh time, scattering wet, eggshell-like skull fragments the whole time.

With the emotional investment of a telemarketer checking off numbers in a phone book, Isaac brought a clipboard and ballpoint pen out from his backpack and briskly marked down tally marks in accordance with the new corpses around him, and counted again just to be sure. Back the clipboard went, but Isaac had forgotten to return the pen to its proper place in the backpack before zipping the pocket up and instead elected to place it snugly behind his right ear.

"Adapt and overcome," Isaac murmured as he meticulously loaded new bullets into all the magazines of his weapons, for what must have been the twelfth time that day.

His intellectual faculties had been in a perpetual state of hazy disorganization since he became aware of his laborious yet exciting situation for what felt like the fortieth or so time, but his emotional state possessed a quality of utter clarity, the likes of which he had never before experienced; not during his most serene meditation retreat or warm Thanksgiving dinner.

He finally finished reloading and went forth to continue killing.

There was nothing he had not seen or done before.

He used guns. If he did not succeed in killing the group before all of the magazines needed to be refilled, he used a hand weapon. If said weapon broke or became stuck within the cranial cavity of a pony, he used his bare hands.

Isaac did this many more times, stopping only to heed nature's call.

This did not mean that Isaac did not wish to rest; in fact, his desire for rest was one of his strongest motivators, along with seeing the situation's moral imperative through to its logical conclusion.

So, when he finally stood face-to-face with its end, Isaac smiled with mirth and relief.

"This can finally be over."

The young man who faced Isaac grit his teeth in fury and stared him down with a gaze consumed by sorrow and the glint of murderous intent.

Isaac watched as the young man cradled a small, dead pony in his arms, tears and blood staining its pale coat in equal parts. The young man's tears had long dried up and his cries of sorrow had died with the equines he had called his friends.

Hot, grief-imbued rage boiled in the young man's lungs, immersing his being into the emotional equivalent of molten lead. Everything he cared for had been taken from him. Everything had been ruined.

The wonderful world which he had been brought to as an escape from the plane he hailed from had been stomped out by the indifferent boot of a fellow traveler.

The young man gently closed the eyes of the small pony, laid her down on a spot of soil not tainted with ash and blood, and stood up to look Isaac straight in the eye.

Looking at Isaac's unaffected expression only furthered the young man's rage; clenching his jaw so hard that his molars cracked, he snapped.

"Why? Why the fuck did you do this, you bastard?! Why did you have to do this?!" The young man unloaded on Isaac with a stream of screaming, crazed in its fury.

"WHAT DID WE DO TO YOU?! WHAT DID I DO WRONG?! YOU TOOK EVERYTHING I HAD...!" The young man's last word was cut off by an emerging sob in his throat which made itself clearly audible.

"Why...?" He croaked in between newly-formed tears and snot. "WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO MUCH?!"

The young man grasped the handle of a gilded sword that rested in a scabbard on his hip and furiously drew it to direct its razor-sharp point at Isaac, who gave a good-natured smile.

"I don't hate you; I'm here to set you free, man."

The young man was simultaneously confused, mortified, and enraged.

"I'm going to fucking kill you."

"In fact," Isaac continued without missing a beat, "I would go as far as to say that I'm saving you."

The young man's mouth went agape as his eyes widened, his pupils like pinpricks. Like a man possessed, he began to step forward with his sword aimed at Isaac's heart: its fine point and gleaming edge screamed for the chance to taste Isaac's blood; to rend flesh from bone; to mutilate him for his sins.

"..."

"You never wanted this," Isaac said matter-of-factly, "Or you shouldn't have, anyway."

The young man shambled forward, the sword visibly shaking.

"This..." Isaac thought of how to clarify his thoughts, "Weakness. This fleeing from reality; this rejection of struggle." A tinge of disgust leaked into his tone.

The young man began to hyperventilate.

"This abdication of responsibility." Isaac sounded like someone who had suddenly remembered something they had forgotten for some time; as if it all clicked. "You were too weak to face the real world, and, like so many others, was brought here to live in your own conflict-free, Eden-like paradise."

The young man had stopped walking.

"But let me tell you; this place is not what you think it is," Isaac said in a grave tone. "Humans who stay here-they break. They become something else. It's gradual but unavoidable." Isaac's face betrayed realization similar to one who had recounted a repressed memory. "You'll degenerate into a sick parody of yourself, and eventually, nothing."

Isaac sighed, a faint smile etching itself on his face as he began to remember.

"I know this because at some time, in some sense, I was in your position. And If I understand correctly, hundreds, if not thousands like us have walked a mile in those moccasins. We were filth. Death was preferable to the state of being that came with accepting the rules of this place."

The young man's shock was made evident by his expression. He slowly lowered his sword, as if uncertain of whether or not he should resume his homicidal advance.

"T-that doesn't make sense..." The young man murmured, the burning rage which had moments ago consumed his very soul rendered impotent, as if simply doused with ice water.

"I want to break this cycle; I want to put this to a stop," Isaac continued, "I need to put this world out of its misery, once and for all."

The young man began to see flashes, of some other experience. People like him; they spoke to the ponies the way he had; adventured the way he had; laughed the way he had; loved the way he had.

"This isn't murder; it's euthanasia."

The feelings elicited by those images began to change. Like putrid worms writhing within his guts, tinges of resentment, sorrow, and disgust burrowed to the core of his very being. These feelings were accompanied by different visions of his fellow travelers. He saw man's likelihood of reaching self-actualization here, and felt the will to death; saw a shadowy pegasus writhing in his own lifeblood, and felt his hubristic denial in the face of disillusionment; saw a man who submitted himself to the supreme maternal figure of the land in the pursuit of placidity, comfort, and total resignation, and felt a profound animosity whose sole corollary was the application of sharpened steel; saw a young man who was teetering on the edge of virtual damnation, and felt the conviction to take his destiny into his own hands.

The young man's eyes once again met Isaac's as he slowly exhaled, an expression of sublime clarity etched on his face and in his voice.

"Finish what I start."

The young man took the gilded sword, gifted to him by the ponies he had called his friends, and drove it into his abdomen up to the hilt. He showed no indications of pain and looked as if having just achieved rapture.

Isaac nodded earnestly, drew a handgun, and put a bullet into the forehead of the young man, whose body crumpled to the ground. He exhaled, looked around at the burning landscape choked with mountains of fresh corpses, relaxed his shoulders, and for a moment basked in pure, sublime exultation.

"It's done!" Isaac half-cheered, half-laughed, before putting the pistol to his right temple and, with absolutely no trepidation or hesitation, pulling the trigger.

And so, it was finished.

* * *

The young man opened his eyes and found himself in his room. He got up and opened a window's blinds. He saw real blue skies, real green pastures, and real conscious creatures. He caught his faint reflection in the window and realized that he was among them.

He was happy.

He had accepted reality.

He chose life.

* * *

FIN

* * *

 **A/N: Bet you guys didn't expect to see me again, eh? Told you I'd be back in roughly two years!**

 **I wrote this for fun on-and-off over the past couple of years and thought it was time to put it up. It's one part an allegory (I'll leave the subject thereof to your interpretation) and one part a semi-competent final note to the odd literary universe I seem to have accidentally created over the course of the past six years.**

 **I have to say, it's pretty bewildering to look back and see how much I've changed: published my first trash fire of a story before I was even a teenager, and now I'm an adult close to setting off for college.**

 **I'll still be lurking on the odd occasion, but it's very unlikely that I'll be publishing anything with any kind of consistency; the wonderful world outside has got me occupied.**

 **Thanks for reading, and have a good one.**


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